Helen Hyde, 1897
At the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC
In a recent blog post, Jana J. Monji discusses a recent exhibit at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California, which highlights the artistic perceptions of Asia on the part of Hyde and other western women in the early 20th century. Monji notes:
While we’ve often seen how the white male represented the Orient. . . the Orient was a much different place for the women who went to East Asia. Instead of seeing the geisha and the concubines of the Yoshiwara district. . . we see romanticized landscapes that seem ready for a storybook and scenes of domesticity: a mother and child. Helen Hyde was the first of four female Western artists who lived in Japan. In Tokyo in the 1920s, Bertha Lum, Elizabeth Keith and Lilian Miller joined Hyde. . .I'll have to check these artists out at some point -- & let me know if you have any favorite artists from or working in Asia!